Cohutta 100

Finally, a 100-miler! Although I have been racing a bunch of cross country this year with some good results, 100s are what I love most. Saying I was excited for Cohutta is a complete understatement.

Photo @ Sara Kristen

I felt great going into the race. Training had been going well, I had just spent 3 days getting my bikes dialed and working on my pedal stroke and position with Tom at Wobble-Naught and I was chomping at the bit to get to a race that mattered to me.

Sometimes the traveling is the most difficult part of being a pro racer. My trip out to Cohutta was one of those trips where nothing was going to go smoothly. Thankfully, I have had very few days like this in my career and I suppose days like these are just a function of involving airplanes in your travel plans. My travel to Chattanooga happened to be on the day of some of the worst tornadoes in the south's history.

From Salt Lake, I was rerouted to Memphis, sat on the runway for hours while they tried to fix our weather radar, got off the plane, got back on the plane, got off again, tried to rent a car and drive to Ducktown from Memphis but couldn't because my bags never made it from Salt Lake. I then got a hotel and a 3.5 hour nap at a Memphis hotel, tried to catch an early flight to Atlanta which got delayed then cancelled, finally got a flight to ATL, got on a flight to Chattanooga....but apparently my bags did not. Sigh. I got to CHA, rented a car, drove to Whole Foods to burn some time and eat real food for the first time in 24 hours only to find they had lost power and had to throw away all their fresh produce. I had a small, private temper tantrum, did some shopping for dry goods, went back to the airport and waited for my bags to show up. I finally got my bag and bike, looked for a grocery that had fresh produce, drove to Ducktown and arrived at my hotel at 9pm, 35 hours after leaving my house in Idaho, just in time to attempt to get a solid night sleep.

I had never personally witnessed the selective destruction a tornado can do. The 1-hr drive to Ducktown took almost 3 because all the traffic lights were out and crews were out clearing the road of debris, large trees and powerlines, giving me ample opportunity to gawk at mother nature's power. A roof would be blown entirely off one building, and the one next to it would be fine. In some places it looked like some one had taken a 50-yard wide weed wacker straight though a field. Pretty sobering stuff. I definitely thought a lot about the people affected during my travels and even though I'm not religious and being described as spiritual would be a stretch, I tried to send as much healing energy to those affected as I could.

Friday was typical 100-miler prep. Building my bike, getting out for a solid 2hr ride with a bunch of intervals to blow out the travel, mixing up aid station drops, trying not to get overly excited. I had enough time to actually get into bed and put my feet up for the afternoon, but the only thing that was on was the royal wedding. WTF? On every channel? Netflix on demand came to the rescue.

I got up at 4:30am Saturday and started pumping the coffee. As I was running out the door, I just happened to see that the coffee I had been drinking all morning was DECAF! Apparently, in my post travel haze, I didn't notice that the spiffy package of Organic Italian Roast had a tiny little line that said decaf. Thankfully, I had a few emergency Starbucks Vias (I never travel without them) and at least got a little caffiene into me on the way to the start.

The 7am start was COLD. It was probably about 45 deg. and this is clearly where I made my first mistake of the day. I chose to start in just a jersey and shorts and definitely should have started in both leg and arm warmers. The 15 sec. it would have taken me to take them off and put them in my pockets would have been worth the 4 hours I spent struggling to warm up.

The Cohutta start is a 5-8%, 3-mile paved climb to almost 10 miles of singletrack, so getting the hole-shot is critical. You don't want to be stuck behind a train of slower traffic because the opening hour has few passing options. I thought I had set myself up nicely, going at XC race pace to stay with the lead pack of men, until a guy who was riding quite spastically decided to fold it over on the first switchback, right in front of me. This is where Cheryl passed me and how she got in front for the next 30 min. of singltrack. This is also where my body temp dropped drastically. I wasn't going hard enough to generate any heat, but it was probably more because I dressed like I was going to the beach.

A train of men had stacked up behind us and that's when I finally spoke up, said she had better accelerate or get out of the way to let them by. I managed to get by finally, let a bunch of those guys go ahead of me, and then settled into a more comfortable rhythm. It wasn't until I got into the pace that I actually wanted to ride at that I realized that I wasn't going very well. At all. Legs felt like blocks of cold wood. HR was low. Cadence was slow. I tried to push as hard as I could but not much was coming of the effort. I stopped at Aid 2 to fill some bottles and went on my way.

Photo @ Sara Kristen

Cheryl caught me just after Aid 2 when I was feeling my worst. I had that sinking feeling of "Oh boy, it's gonna be a long day." We rode together for the next 10 miles or so and she was riding so well, so strong and taking such monster pulls I really thought I was in trouble. I just tried my best not to panic, so keep it steady and to be patient with my body. I knew I would come around eventually, no sense in feeling badly about the fact that I was feeling bad, right?

Finally, at about mile 34 I pulled away from her. I made it in and out of Aid 3 quickly and set out on my own way. By hour 4 I started to feel better. By hour 5 I finally felt like myself. My legs opened up, my head cleared and I started passing people steadily. Feeling good built more confidence and allowed me to concentrate on not smearing off the edges of the endless, harrowing gravel road descents. Drifting corners is not my speciality. Especially on newly graveled roads. At some point during the race I hit 39 MPH. Thankfully, it wasn't when a car was coming at me around the corner. Generally speaking, the last few hours were awesome. I just kept feeling stronger and stronger.

I finished 1st, in 7:33, a full 30 min. faster than my time last year and 29 min ahead of 2nd place. Granted, it wasn't raining sideways, thundering or lightening, but besting my time by 1/2 an hour felt really good. I seemed to remember that Pua had done it a few years back in 7:45, so I was shooting to finish better than that. No word on whether that's a course record or not, though.

For you equipment hounds reading, the set up I used is what I consider my typical Ultra rig: the Felt Nine, perfectly fit to Wobble-Naught standards, Kenda Karmas in a 1.9 front and rear, GX2 Ergon Grips with , Sram 2x10 drivetrain with 40/26 WickWerks rings and an 11/36 cassette. I used bottles (1 on the bike, one in the pocket) filled with Hammer Nutrition Heed, flasks of Hammer gel, Endurance Amino and Endurolytes, and Pearl Izumi Octane SL II Shoes.

My travel day home went very smoothly, although it required another 4am wakeup call to make my flight. I made it home in time for a quick spin on the trainer (it was snowing), a walk with the dog and a much needed massage. I followed that up with a way more painful ART and active stretching session at 121 Wellness on Monday and think my recovery is going to be the fastest ever. Good thing, because Syllamo's Revenge 100K, the second NUE, is less than 2 weeks away.

If you've made it this far, thanks for reading!